20 Facts About Fiorucci

Fiorucci is an Italian fashion label founded by Elio Fiorucci in 1967.

The first Fiorucci shop exposed Milan to the styles of Swinging London and to American classics such as the T-shirt and jeans.

Elio Fiorucci was found dead in his Milan home on 20 July 2015, at the age of 80.

Elio Fiorucci was born in Milan on 10 June 1935, son of a shoe shop owner.

Fiorucci opened his first shop on Galleria Passerella in Milan on 31 May 1967, selling clothes by London designers such as Ossie Clark and Zandra Rhodes.

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In 1968, Fiorucci looked East for inspiration, buying cheap T-shirts from India and turning rice sacks into bags.

In 1976 Fiorucci opened a store in New York City, down the block from Bloomingdale's on East 59th Street between Lexington and Park Avenues in Manhattan, with the goal of introducing the brand to American trendsetters during the disco age.

Ever on the pulse of the times, Fiorucci sponsored the reunion of Simon and Garfunkel in The Concert in Central Park on 19 September 1981, attended by 400,000 people or more, and on the bill for their birthday party in 1983 was a then-unknown Madonna.

In 1987, Fiorucci produced the Junior Gaultier line designed by Jean-Paul Gaultier, and in 1989, they went back to their roots with a deal with Vivienne Westwood, queen of the London street scene.

Fiorucci closed down the rest of the US retail locations in 1988 after a franchise dispute, moving instead to a wholesale strategy.

Fiorucci went into administration in April 1989, after a dispute over the strategic direction of the firm that had seen Elio offer to buy out Aki Nuhi.

In January 1996, after a plea bargain, Elio Fiorucci was given a suspended jail sentence of 22 months for inflating the value of invoices to increase the value of the company to Carrera at the expense of his creditors.

Fiorucci had set up a brand of his own called Love Therapy, and designed for Agent Provocateur.

In March 2003, Elio Fiorucci announced that after 36 years, he was closing the doors to his historic shop in Corso Vittorio Emmanuele, Milan.

When Fiorucci hit the scene nearly 40 years ago, he blew Italy - and the rest of the world - away with a larger-than-life attitude.

Fiorucci brought in the new and unexpected, pre-dating the surge of today's "lifestyle" stores.

In 2015, the year Elio Fiorucci died, the brand was sold by the Japanese trading house Itochu to Janie Schaffer, an ex- CEO of Victoria's Secret, and her business partner and former husband Stephen.

In 1979, along with Halston and Gucci, Fiorucci was name-checked in the Sister Sledge disco song, "He's The Greatest Dancer".

Beverly Hills Fiorucci store was featured in the 1980 cult classic movie Xanadu, where the ELO video "All Over the World" was filmed.

Fiorucci was mentioned in the song "Beverly Hills" by the band The Circle Jerks.